Boeing is hiding something. One of CNN's aviation experts, David Soucie, said on CNN earlier today that Boeing claims to be waiting for information from Ethiopian Airlines before acting on the Ethiopian crash. Soucie says this is ridiculous. Flightradar is a public website which shows that there had to be an error in the aircraft's Flight Angle of Attack indicator. He has been able to determine that on three separate occasions over less than 30 seconds as the aircraft was proceeding down the runway, the ACARS system which transmits bursts of live data showed that the Angle of Attack was 2,500 ft. per minute! So the instruments on a 737 Max8 that was level on the ground showed it was flying. How this is possible without the pilots being aware of it beats me.

Soucie added that he would still fly the 737 Max8 today, but he reckons the fleet should be grounded. He would not let his 5-year old granddaughter on to the plane until the reason for the crash has been identified! Since he made that quote, the European Union has now banned the aircraft from flying in its airspace. Even Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has called on the FAA “to get these planes out of the sky!” I can't believe a worldwide grounding will not take place fairly soon.

fountainhall wrote:I can't believe a worldwide grounding will not take place fairly soon.

It reminds me of what happened with the de Havilland Comet. It took several crashes before the plane was grounded and they finally figured out what was causing the crashes.

They found the Max8 black boxes. If it turns out to be the instruments and/or automatic systems, I would have to wonder whether to blame Boeing or the manufacturer of those instruments. In other words, is the airplane itself defective or does it simply need new instruments?

I would certainly refuse to fly on one of them until the cause of the crashes is determined, whether the cause was the same in each individual incident, and if the problems can be resolved.

Boeing can try to claim what they want, but since American citizens were on the plane, the NTSB will be involved in the investigation. I'm much more interested in the NTSB conclusions than I am in what Boeing says.

In any case, who wants to fly on an unsafe airplane? I wonder whether pilots will refuse to fly them whether the airlines want to ground them or not.

ATHENS - When Antonis Mavropoulos knew he missed the flight after arriving two minutes late on the boarding gate, the Greek man said he was initially enraged.

“Running to catch flight ER 302 Addis Ababa – Nairobi… I had my nerves because there was no one to help me go fast,” Mavropoulos wrote on now-viral Facebook post translated from Greek.

“I lost it for two minutes, when I arrived, the boarding was closed and I watched the last passengers in tunnel go in – I screamed to put me in but they didn’t allow it,” he continued.

But it took also just minutes for Mavropoulos to realize how “lucky” he was.

Mavropoulos is president of the non-profit organization International Solid Waste Association and was reportedly bound to Nairobi, Kenya to attend an annual UN environmental assembly.

He could have also been on the Ethiopian Airlines plane bound for Nairobi that crashed six minutes after takeoff Sunday, killing more than 150 people on board.

Grief has engulfed the world as victims, mostly humanitarian workers, ambassador, and international experts, came from more than 35 countries.

In the same emotional post entitled “My Lucky Day,” Mavropoulos shared a photo of his boarding pass and said, “I lost the flight – the moment I made that thought I collapsed because then exactly I realized how lucky I stood.”

As of this writing, the post has amassed more than twenty thousand reactions and above six thousand shares.

The Greek man narrated that he was transferred to the next flight but was informed by airport authorities that he couldn’t board again because of “security reasons.”

He said he was taken to the airport police department to verify his identity and was questioned for being the lone passenger who did not board the doomed flight.

“He told me gently not to protest and say thank you to God because I am the only passenger who did not enter the flight ET 302 which is missing,” Mavropoulos said.

He said a friend from Nairobi confirmed that the flight crashed and that the news had been out in the media.

He immediately contacted his people and informed them that “for two small random circumstances,” he lost the flight.

Mavropoulos added he was sharing his story to tell the world that “ invisible and nēmatídia of fortune, the out-of-plan circumstances knit the web in which our life is taken.”

“It’s millions of small threads we almost never feel – but one to break is enough to feed the whole web instantly,” he further said.

He also thanked his friends for their “love” and warm support and apologized to his family for the shock, saying that he is “grateful to live.”

“Maybe not too old to rock n roll – but certainly too young to die,” he concluded.

fountainhall wrote:I being plain dumb in thinking this is clearly an accident waiting to happen? It's a bit like a guard putting a prisoner in his cell and giving him the key with the admonition "Be a good boy and don't unlock the door!"

You are missing the point that Boeing are not some thieving criminal type AND it's also very bad business building planes that crash. If they build planes that have an unreasonable crash rate, then no one buys them, no one wants to fly them, the insurance gets more expensive and presumably Boeing would be at risk of litigation. So there is every incentive for them to to the job properly.

The system of companies checking what they make themselves is common in virtually every industry & has worked just fine. In the aviation industry, the safety of the planes has improved by orders of magnitude.

Where they need to take care is getting the right balance between encouraging innovation and improvement that gives the customer improved safety, improved fuel efficiency, reduced noise etc and having sufficient checks in place on new planes. If the regime is too tough, all the improvements get stopped. Currently I think they need to look at improvement of detection of the problems with new planes, engines and systems.

Gaybutton wrote:They found the Max8 black boxes. If it turns out to be the instruments and/or automatic systems, I would have to wonder whether to blame Boeing or the manufacturer of those instruments. In other words, is the airplane itself defective or does it simply need new instruments?

Boeing are responsible. Their FMEA should ensure that even if sensors fail, the failure is detected and the systems compensate. There should be at least 2 entirely different methods of determining altitude, speed and pitch, with plausibility checks on the signals received.

New York (CNN Business) - The pilot of the downed Ethiopian Airlines flight had "flight control problems" shortly before the fatal crash, according to the company's chief executive.

A recorded conversation with air traffic control detailed the final moments of the flight, CEO Tewolde GebreMariam told CNN's Richard Quest on Tuesday.

"He was having difficulties with the flight control of the airplane, so he asked to return back to base," GebreMariam said. He added that the pilot was granted permission to return to ground. That happened at the same time the flight disappeared from radar.

All 157 people aboard the Boeing (BA) 737 MAX 8 died when it crashed soon after takeoff from Addis Ababa on Sunday. It was the second time in less than six months that a 737 MAX 8 was involved in a fatal incident, after a Lion Air flight from Indonesia went down in October.

GebreMariam said the Ethiopian Airlines pilots had received additional training on the flight procedures involving the 737 MAX 8 after the Lion Air crash.

"We believe the similarities are substantial" between the two crashes, GebreMariam said, adding that both incidents featured new models of the same airplane, and both flights lasted only minutes before the planes went down.

Both crashes are still under investigation, and there is no evidence that they are linked in causality.

GebreMariam declined to say whether he thought all Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft should be grounded across the globe, though he noted that Ethiopian Airlines has grounded its fleet of MAX 8s. He also pointed out that several countries, including China, Australia and the United Kingdom, are not allowing MAX 8s to fly either.

"We don't yet know the exact cause of the accident, and speculation is not helpful in either way," GebreMariam said, "but I think there are questions without answers on the airplane."

The black boxes from the Ethiopian Airlines plane have been recovered, which will enable investigators to learn more about the cause of the crash.
GebreMariam said Ethiopia's Ministry of Transport will work with the United States, where Boeing is based, to find a place to examine that data. Ethiopia does not nave the necessary equipment to perform those tasks on its own, he added.

The US authorities have not stopped operation of the plane.
Surprising considering it appears we have similarities between the 2 crashes.

I am also surprised that it takes so long to get some preliminary findings. The data off the black box should be downloaded within max 24 hours of the black boxes being found. Exactly how long does it take to extract data, plot a graph and compare with the Lion air data ? Obviously that's not a full investigation, but they should be able to determine if it's a similar kind of failure to the Lion air one.

All the international bans on this plane should at least serve as a good kick up the butt for Boeing to accelerate their activities.

Gaybutton wrote:If it turns out to be the instruments and/or automatic systems, I would have to wonder whether to blame Boeing or the manufacturer of those instruments. In other words, is the airplane itself defective or does it simply need new instruments?

When it comes to apportioning blame, I cannot believe anyone looks at the instrument manufacturer. Even it that contributed to the downing of the plane, Boeing engineers presumably worked with the manufacturer to develop the instrument. These engineers should never have accepted it had they believed it was anything other than 100% effective. The head of Boeing's 737 Max programme would have ensured his senior staff signed off on it. It is installed in a Boeing aircraft. There is no question in my mind that Boeing and only Boeing bears the responsibility.

I remember flying from Geneva to New York in the summer of 1998 on a Swissair MD11. It was a great flight and the first time I had enjoyed the new video on demand system. Only days later on the return leg to Geneva, a fire broke out on that exact same aircraft I had flown. It crashed off Nova Scotia with the loss of all on board. The cause of the crash was a result of overheating in the wiring of the video on demand system which had ignited flammable insulation above the cockpit. McDonnell Douglas had not manufactured the insulation material and its engineers had installed it obviously without sufficient exhaustive testing. Ultimately the blame lay with McDonnell Douglas.

Interesting if brief discussions on CNN this morning with David Soucie and Mary Schiavo. For the 737 Max Boeing uses a larger engine. To avoid their hitting the ground, they are set higher on the wing than earlier models of the 737. Inevitably this creates different handling and airflow conditions. It was to assist pilots that the new instrumentation was added. However, as we know, Boeing did not feel this was of sufficient importance either to warn airlines about it or include it in the pilots' manual.

Worse, and this is similar to the 787 battery fiasco, the US FAA provides certification for new planes not because its inspectors are totally satisfied that they are airworthy. It relies on Boeing to carry out all the checks itself! When the 777 came into service, Boeing engineers signed off on 95% of the checks required for certification.

Am I being plain dumb in thinking this is clearly an accident waiting to happen? It's a bit like a guard putting a prisoner in his cell and giving him the key with the admonition "Be a good boy and don't unlock the door!"

Worryingly, as the previous post point out, Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max pilots had received additional training after the Lion Air crash.

Even more worrying and as reported in today's Guardian newspaper, pilots of at least two US flights have complained that their new Boeing jet pointed its nose down automatically. Clearly if that happens soon after take off, there is insufficient height to correct the problem.